Beloved Children In Christ,
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Truly, Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35, 48, 51), He is the light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5), He is the door (John 10:7, 9), He is the good shepherd (John 10:11), 14), He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), He is the true vine (John 15:1). This is God who revealed Himself to Moses in the Old Testament, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14).
The great I AM described Himself in the hypostasis of the Son with interpersonal details as it relates to us. It is He about whom the prophet said, “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa 11:1). The Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself, “I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star” (Rev 22:16). He established a New Covenant, where we may eat of the life-giving tree, which is His body, and drink of the fountain of life, which is His blood. This is who St John the Baptist identified as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Through the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, we are living in the era of grace, redeemed by His precious blood for the wages of our sins. In God’s eyes, the cost of salvation was worth the pain and suffering of Christ, “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:21).
How often we disappoint, betray, and deny, and yet He remains faithful. When He thirsted, we gave Him bitter vinegar, but yet He tells us as He said to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that ”while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(Rom 5:8). Most greetings in the epistles of the New Testament include peace, grace, and love, relevant terms describing the essence of Christianity. The Lord Jesus Christ gathered us all beneath His widespread arms nailed to the cross so that Jews and Gentiles alike may be gathered together with faith in His love. Live the life of the glorious resurrection in love, grace, and peace with all people and greet each other with these manners in kindness and graciousness.
Thus, approach the holy altar of God worthily to partake of the bread of life with sincere repentance. With diligence, arrive early to church, like the faithful women who met the risen Christ at the break of dawn. God is sending you personal messages in each days’ readings that will transform you. Enter through the doors of the church into the door of His heart and keep the sound doctrine. Be a lost sheep no more when you stay close to your shepherd and know His sweet voice. Allow Him to raise you from the sins that entrap and entangle you. Read the Holy Scripture with depth and pray for understanding that you may know and stay in the way, the truth, and the life. He has grafted you into His vine that you may be branches in Him. Nourish yourself in His love that you may live your faith in the joy of the glorious resurrection in the era of grace.
May the Lord bless you and keep you in the palm of His hand and preserve the life of our honoured father and patriarch, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, for many years and peaceful times.
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His Eminence Metropolitan Youssef is Metropolitan of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States (suscopts.org).
Watani International
20 April 2025
